Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

Märchen – Yoruba

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Nationality: Nigerian
Age: 47
Occupation: Financial Administrator
Residence: Diamond Bar, CA
Performance Date: April 27, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Yoruba, French, Urdu

Aja, Alabaun, Ati Yanribo

Aja, Alabaun, ati Yanribo jo nse ore po.  Gbogbo won pa nu po lati pa iya won.  Alabaun ati Yanribo pa iya won sugbon. Aja gbe ti lo pamo si orun.  Igba ti o ba fe lo wo iya e, Aja a ma korin bayi:

Iya, Iya takun wa le O

Alu join join ki join

Gbogbo eranko pa yeye e je O

Alu join join ki join

Aja gbe ti o dorun O

Alu join join ki join

Ni ijo kan, awon eranko ka mo ibi to ti nkorin si Iya e.  Ni won ba ni awon ma lo pa Iya e ni.

Dog, Tortoise, and his Wife

The dog, the tortoise, and his wife were all friends. They all decided to kill their mothers.  The other animals went along with the plan and killed their mothers, but the dog went and hid his mother in heaven.  Whenever he wanted to visit his mother, he would sing like this:

Mother, Mother bring down the rope

Alu join join ki join

All the animals killed their mothers

Alu join join ki join

The dog carried his to heaven

Alu join join ki join

One day, the other animals caught the dog while he was singing to his mother.  They decided that they would have to kill his mother.

Abiola heard this story when she was around eight years old.  She used to visit her grandmother in the village and the elders would tell stories to the children at night.  This story follows in the call and reply format.  The story contains the refrain “Alu join join ki join” which is intended for listeners to reply back to the teller as she tells the tale.  This tale features the most popular character in Nigerian tales, the tortoise, but this tale refers to him as “Alabaun” instead of as Ijapa.  The tortoise has several names that change in spelling, pronunciation, or word from region to region.  This story also features the tortoise’s wife Yanribo.  Once again, the tortoise is causing mischief.  In this story he and his wife decide that all of the animals in the village should kill their mothers.  His friend the dog is with them when they make this decision, he agrees with the animals but

ultimately refuses to kill his mother.  Instead, he takes her directly to heaven to hide her from the other animals.  The tortoise and his wife eventually find out that the dog lied to them when he sings to his mother to let down a rope from heaven so that he can visit her.  When they discover this, they kill his mother.  Abiola says that the lesson that children learn from this is that honesty is always better than deceit.  They also learn to stand up for their beliefs.  The dog should have told the others that it was a bad idea to kill their mothers instead of pretending to agree with them.  In the end he is found out and his mother is killed, which he might have prevented had he been brave enough to be the dissenting voice.

Joke – United States

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Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2008
Primary Language: English

Joke- United States

“So a guy walks into the bar and orders a drink from the bartender. Sitting there and drinking, he looks over and sees a horse. He calls the bartender over and asks why there’s a horse in the bar. Bartender tells him, “Oh its my horse.” And then the bartender goes, “I bet you can’t make my horse laugh.” The guy goes “Okay, for a drink?” and the bartender goes. “Sure, why not.” So the guy takes the horse into the other room. About 15 seconds later, the guy opens the door. And the horse is laughing. So then the bartender gives him a drink and asks him how he did it. However, the guy refuses to tell him. So the bartender goes, “okay, if you make my horse cry, ill give you another drink.” So the guy says, “okay.” So the guy takes the horse into the other room. About 15 seconds later, the guy opens the door and the horse is crying. So the bartender gives him his free drink and asks him how he did it. The guy goes, “if you gives me another drink, I’ll tell you.” So the bartender gives him another drink and the guy tells him, “To make your horse laugh, I told him I had a bigger penis than him. To make him cry, I showed him.””

Eric told me that he learned this joke randomly from his friend in high school, probably his sophomore year. He said that they were “probably just messing around” and telling each other these jokes about sex and sexual parts. He said he really liked this joke and thought it was really funny. So it kind of just stayed with him all these years. However, he said it was hard to remember the joke exactly. He said that it was hard to tell the joke with all the pieces being the same every time. He said most of the time when he tells it, the joke is always a little different.

Eric is my roommate and I have heard this joke before I recorded it for my folklore collection. I think it is funny and a little immature but yet still funny. I think it was probably my sophomore, maybe freshmen year in high school when my friends and I would tell each other similar jokes. I think it is interesting that even though Eric grew up in Las Vegas and I grew up in  the Los Angeles area that we told similar jokes. I remember telling “Your momma is so fat” jokes, and “bar” jokes and definitely many “sexual” jokes. As I said before I have heard this joke before from him. It’s true what Eric says that every time he tells it, it always changes a little bit. I think last time he told me, the horse was already in the other room and the timing was like 10 seconds later. And I believe I told this joke to someone else using something similar. So I can see how similar jokes with different variations spread amongst people.

Joke – United States

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Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2008
Primary Language: English

Joke- United States

“So a guy walks into the bar and orders a drink from the bartender. Sitting there and drinking, he looks over and sees a ten inch pianist. He calls the bartender over and asks where the little man came from. So the bartender tells him, that he found a lamp and genie came out of it. The genie told him that he would grant him one wish. So the guy goes, “so… you wished of a ten inch pianist?” and the bartender goes, “well… not exactly.””

Eric told me that he also learned this joke randomly from his friend in high school. It was probably sophomore year and probably from the same friend that told him the other bar joke. He said that they would tell a lot of random jokes to each other. He said he also really liked this joke and thought it was really funny. So it kind of just stayed with him all these years. He said that this was a joke that you had to say and not just read. He said that the punch of the joke is way funnier when it is told and not read.

It is kind of weird because I have also heard this joke before when I was younger and probably my sophomore year. However for my joke, the pianist was a twelve inch man. I really thought that this joke was funny when I was younger. It was kind of amusing how the genie mistaken a penis for a pianist. I remember that there were a lot of these word plays, sexual jokes during my childhood; especially during the beginning ages of sexual curiosity and puberty.

Fable – China

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Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Fable- China

“One sunny day, there was a clam lying on the beach. She opened her shell sunbathing on

the sand.

Snipe, gliding in the sky, was looking for food. He saw the sparkling white flesh of the clam.

He thought that it would be a delicious meal. He swooped down to peck her flesh. The clam

immediately closed up her shell, gripping the long snipe’s beak in between.

“If it doesn’t rain today, and it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” the snipe grunted, “I shall see a

dead clam on the beach.”

“If I don’t open today and I don’t open tomorrow,” said the clam, “I, too, shall see a dead

snipe on the beach.”

Then the snipe pecked at the flesh of the clam. The clam held the beak of the snipe tightly.

Neither the clam nor the snipe released each other.

A fisherman passed by and found the snipe and the clam grappling with each other. He

spread out his net and caught both the snipe and the clam with ease.”

Yvonne told me that she originally learned this story in Chinese at her Chinese school when she was about 5 years old. However, she said she didn’t know how to write it in Chinese so she emailed me the translated version she knows. She said in Chinese school, the teachers would make the students read classic Chinese children fables. She thinks that they did this so they can “kill two birds with one stone”. By making them read the Chinese fables; the students learned how to read and learn a lesson. Yvonne told me that the lesson of the story is that by fighting, no one wins. She said that it refers to mostly to neighbors. Since the bird and clam were neighbors and were fighting; they both got caught by the fisherman.

I have never heard this story before until Yvonne sent it to me. After reading the story, the moral of the story is pretty clear. Since the neighbors (the clam and the bird) were fighting, the fisherman easily caught them both. It shows that by fighting, no one benefits. If the neighbors lived in peace and harmony, both of them would be free and not caught by the fisherman.

After looking up this story on online, I found the exact same story online with Chinese characters (see below for image) and another story that is a little different. On Wikipedia, the story goes, “A clam was sitting out in the sun when suddenly a snipe flew down to peck at the clam. Suddenly the clam slammed the shell shut, gripping the snipe’s beak in between. The snipe said, “If it doesn’t rain today, and it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I shall see a dead clam on the beach.” The clam said, “If I don’t open today, and I don’t open up tomorrow, I shall see a dead snipe on the beach.” While they were still grappling with each other, a fisherman passed by and netted them both.”[1] The story is titled differently and worded differently than the one sent to me by Yvonne but the moral of the story is the same; no one wins when they fight.

[2]

Source

1) “The Fight between the Snipe and the Clam”. Wikipedia. 16 December 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fight_Between_the_Snipe_and_the_Clam> 29 April 2008.

2) “The Snipe and the Clam”. EMAS Portsmouth.  <http://www.blss.portsmouth.sch.uk/resources/dlstories/snipe/snipe.shtml> 29 April 2008.

Fable – United States

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Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Fable- United States

“A hare was making fun of a tortoise one day for being so slow.  “Do you ever get anywhere?” the hare asked with a mocking laugh.

“Yes,” replied the tortoise, “and I get there sooner than you think.  Run a race against me and I’ll prove it.”

The hare was very amused at the thought of running a race with the tortoise, and just for fun he decided to do it. So the fox, who agreed to act as judge marked the distance for the race on a path through the woods, and started the runners off.  The hare was soon far out of sight. To let the tortoise know how silly it was for him to challenge a speedy hare, the hare decided to lie down beside the road to take a nap until the tortoise could catch up.

The tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily. After a time, the tortoise passed the place where the hare was sleeping. The hare slept on very peacefully.  When at last he did wake up, the tortoise was already very near the finish line. The hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the tortoise in time.”

Yvonne told me that her mother told her this story when she was about 5 to 6 years old. She said that she was really lazy when she was a child and never wanted to clean her room. Whenever her mother told her to do something or clean her room, she always postponed it until the last minute. She said she would always wait till her mother was mad and it would be too late. She said one day, her mother sat her down and told her this story. Her mother told her this story to teach her a lesson in life. Yvonne said the moral she learned was that lazy people don’t succeed in life and hardworking, perseverant people succeed in life.

I think everyone has heard of at least one variation of “the Hare and the Tortoise”. I remember my father telling me this story in Korean when I was young. I think every child at one point in their life was lazy and had their parent tell them the story of “the Hare and the Tortoise”. In my story, I think the Hare went to get a meal first and then decided to take a nap after the meal. There are slight differences in the story but the overall moral of the story was the same. You have to be hard working and not lazy to succeed in life.

I know many books and stories have been published with “the moral of the Hare and the Tortoise” as the backbone of the story. I searched online for different variations of the story. The search came up with a never ending list of stories. Most of the stories that came up were very similar. One of the websites had a slightly different story than the one Yvonne sent me. In this story, the hare not only teases the tortoise but he also brags about his quickness to all the other animals. This story brings in the community surrounding the hare and tortoise; making the story more detailed and entertaining [1]. There are many other different variations of the story; some of the stories are more detailed than the others.

Sources

1)      “The Hare and the Tortoise”. Children’s Story. <http://www.childrenstory.com/tales/indexhare.html> 29 April 2008